Authors: Joseph Finley
D
ónall lay on the snow-dusted
ground, every inch of him hurting beneath his tattered, bloodstained robes. He glanced at Ciarán beside him, unconscious and breathing weakly. Then he looked up into the faces of a dozen black-robed monks.
The gatekeeper was trying to explain. “They were caught in the storm.”
“It was an evil wind,” another monk said.
“A sign of the apocalypse!” cried a thickset monk.
Chanted Ave Marias rose from the most frightened of the brethren.
“Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus . . .”
“It was the devil’s own tempest!” one insisted.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death . . .”
Prior Bernard waddled into the crowd. His face was ashen. “What in God’s name was that?”
“A terrible omen,” moaned the doomsaying thickset monk. “A sign of the end times!”
Grimacing from a hundred aches and scrapes, Dónall picked himself up off the ground. His right hand clung to the strap of the book satchel.
Prior Bernard blanched. “Brother Dónall? Look at you! I demand to know what happened!”
Dónall did not answer but glared at the gatekeeper and pointed at Ciarán. “Take him to the infirmary,” he said. “Let him rest, but make sure he’s breathing.”
As the burly gatekeeper stooped to lift Ciarán, Dónall pushed past Prior Bernard, who grasped him by a torn sleeve. “Brother Dónall, I must insist . . .” The prior suddenly recoiled, his plump fingers stained with Dónall’s blood.
Dónall looked the dumbfounded prior in the eye. “It was just a freak storm—hell of a nasty wind.”
Ahead, one of the novices had picked up Dónall’s sword, holding it by the pommel as if it were a live snake.
Prior Bernard winced. “What is
that
?”
“Open your eyes, man,” Dónall snapped. “It’s a Roman blade we found in the ruins. I’ll donate it to the duke next time I see him.” He snatched the sword from the novice, who looked relieved to be rid of it. Dónall tipped the blade toward Prior Bernard. “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”
Prior Bernard stared wide-eyed at the blade, backing away and nearly tripping in his haste. The little knot of startled monks parted quickly, and Dónall strode through them and headed for the guesthouse. He had to consult Maugis’ book. Someone or some
thing
had sent those demons against him and Ciarán. And they were still out there, which meant that as soon as he and Ciarán left this abbey, the demons would be waiting.
When he reached the guesthouse, Dónall closed the door and pulled the Book of Maugis from its satchel. Setting the water basin carefully aside, he opened the book on the night table and flipped through pages toward the back. There Maugis had written of demons, which were just as the Book of Enoch had described.
The slain Nephilim shall remain on earth as evil spirits, and they shall be like storms, rising against man and wreaking destruction.
According to Maugis, demons could not be killed, for they were already dead. But they could be warded off.
For an instant, he thought back to Reims, to the time when Brother Orlando longed to test the demon wards in Maugis’ Book. Orlando had searched the Secret Collection for tomes that told how to summon the evil spirits. Luckily, his first attempts had failed before Dónall and Thomas could convince him to stop. Dónall believed that such an act would be unholy—a dark turn down the path to forbidden magic. Thomas had shared that view, but it was clear now that Lucien had not. Had he become so powerful that he could bind demons to his will?
The question was so troubling, Dónall tried to banish it from his mind. Shuttering the window, he removed the opaque crystal from his habit. With the whisper of the Fae word, light flared and then settled to a soft white glow. He scanned the room to make sure all was as it seemed. Then he turned the weathered pages until he found one that was blank except for the heading, scrawled in brown ink:
“The Warding and Binding of Demons.”
As the soul light settled onto the vellum, diagrams and flowing script cascaded down the page.
Maugis had warded demons with a talisman, pictured as a disk etched with a heptagram—the same design Maugis had used in the prophecy’s hieroglyph. Instructions for constructing the talisman followed, accompanied by a litany of Fae words.
Dónall took four silver coins from Remi’s purse—all that remained of a gift from the abbot of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. He stacked them in twos and then brought the stacks within the crystal’s light. Fae words for metalworking flowed from Dónall’s tongue, and as he spoke, the coins grew hot and unstable, melting into molten pools whose shape changed with a wave of his finger. Over the next hour—perhaps more, for in the heat of the ritual, with his mind focused on speaking the language of the Fae, he lost all track of time—Dónall molded the stacks into two smooth disks. Next, he traced the heptagrams, carefully drawing the seven points of each star, with each point touching the edge of the disk. The heptagram was an ancient shape honored by the Jewish mystics and Oriental magi, but early Christians also used it to symbolize the seven days of creation and to protect against evil. As Dónall finished the symbols, his Christian nature demanded something more, so he traced a high cross into the heart of each heptagram and whispered a prayer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He ended with a singular request:
“Deliver us, O Lord, from evil.”
Then he drew a long breath and uttered a series of poetic incantations to seal the power within the talismans.
When he was done, Dónall’s hands trembled and his brow dripped with sweat. What energy had remained after their skirmish with the demons was now spent, and with a deep yawn, he collapsed on the nearest pallet and slept.
*
Dónall woke suddenly at the cock’s crow. He rubbed his weary face and opened the shuttered window to let the sunlight spill through. Moments later, church bells rang the canonical hour of Prime.
Still wearing his tattered Benedictine habit, he exchanged it for his Irish habit and then glanced at the empty pallet beside him. “Ciarán?” he called out before realizing what had happened.
Dear God, I’ve left him in the care of an infirmarer!
He bolted from the room. Down the steps from the guesthouse, he darted into the courtyard, past curious monks filing toward the church, nearly trampling the chickens in his path.
Dónall threw open the door to the infirmary, and the two monks inside jumped in alarm. The windows were still shuttered, and a log burned in the hearth. Four candelabras provided the only meager light surrounding the bed where Ciarán slept. He was half naked, and here and there, black, thumb-size lumps clung to the skin of his chest, stomach, and arms, glistening in the candlelight.
“Get those bloodsucking things off him!” Dónall growled.
The infirmarer, a wiry monk with a pinched nose, and his apprentice, a novice no older than fifteen, looked confounded.
“Why?” the infirmarer asked. “He surely has a disease of the blood. We have applied the leeches.”
“Leechcraft is not medicine!”
The infirmarer puckered his mouth. “What do you know of the four humors? When the blood is poisoned, it must be leeched.”
Dónall poked a finger at the infirmarer’s chest. “I studied at Reims with Gerbert of Aurillac, who had knowledge of Arabic medicine, which is a damned sight more sophisticated than yours. Have you ever thought of trying to diagnose the disease rather than just jumping to reckless conclusions? Most likely, the lad’s just exhausted. You’d be better off putting wine from Cognac under his nose and into his mouth. Then see how he reacts before you start letting his blood.”
“We have that wine,” the trembling apprentice offered.
“Then for the love of God, lad, go get some!”
*
The Cognac worked better than Dónall had expected. Ciarán woke, groggy as if from a deep sleep. He seemed to have no recollection of his possession by the demon, which Dónall supposed was a good thing, although he would have liked to know what master the demon served.
Dónall sat with Ciarán all that day while he rested. By the next morning, Ciarán was sitting upright in bed, slurping down bowls of broth brought by the infirmarer’s apprentice, and grateful to be back in his familiar Irish habit. Dónall had slipped one of the talismans around Ciarán’s neck, hanging it from a leather thong obtained from the abbey’s tanner. “Always wear this under your habit,” he said.
“What is it?” Ciarán asked.
“Something to protect you from the demons.”
“Is that what they were?” The color had yet to return to his face.
“If Maugis is right, with us wearing the talismans they shouldn’t be able to come near us.”
Before Dónall could say more, the infirmarer returned, accompanied by the gatekeeper.
“Brother Dónall,” the gatekeeper said, “there’s a man here to see you.”
“Oh?”
“It’s the rabbi ben Ezra.”
Dónall glanced at Ciarán. “Curious. I’ll see what he needs.”
“I’m coming with you,” Ciarán said.
“You need rest.”
“I’ve had rest aplenty.” Ciarán threw off his blanket and bounded out of bed. His knees buckled, and he sprawled on the infirmary floor.
The infirmarer handed him a walking stick, and he rose gingerly to his feet. “No worries,” he said.
“Hobble along, then, if you insist,” Dónall said.
As they stepped into the crisp morning air, Dónall searched for any sign of the storms that had preceded the demons, but only a canopy of gray-white clouds blanketed the sky.
At the abbey gate stood the rabbi, wrapped in a heavy blue cloak and leaning on a walking stick of his own. Rabbi Isaac ben Ezra smiled as Dónall and Ciarán approached.
“To what do we owe this honor?” Dónall asked.
“I am glad that you have not embarked on your journey home,” the rabbi said. “There is something you should know.”
“Not another warning about Vikings, I hope,” Dónall said.
“This is more timely than that,” the rabbi replied. A cunning smile spread across his face. “For I know how we can find your Stone of Light.”
C
iarán moved stiffly after Dónall
and the rabbi to the abbey’s church. Still dazed at learning of his brief demonic possession, Ciarán prayed there were no lasting effects, and he was much relieved to see the morning sky without any sign of the demons’ storm clouds. Still, he found the church a welcome sanctuary. Dónall had picked it because the brothers of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand were now between holy offices, so the place would be deserted.
Window slits covered in vellum palely lit the cramped church, and the resinous scent of incense lingered in the air. The rabbi looked around him, as if studying a foreign place. Dónall offered him a seat on a stone bench in the well of the nave and sat down beside him, while Ciarán leaned on his walking stick.
“Tell us, Rabbi,” Dónall said. “I am eager to hear.”
“You will forgive me if what I tell you sounds strange,” the rabbi began, “but I would not be here if I did not think there is some truth in it. Since we met, my sleep has been plagued by dreams. In many, I have been haunted by a great beast as large as ten horses, long-necked and red-scaled like the dragon of Babylon, with broad wings like an eagle’s. I could smell the stench of its evil. It scoured the earth, searching for something. By the depth of my fear, I knew that it was looking for the Urim. Then this dream faded, and I was in another. I saw the Ark of the Covenant—beautiful beyond imagination, its sides gleaming with gold. Its lid, thick and adorned with Bezalel’s designs, bore the two cherubim kneeling atop the Ark, with outstretched wings that met in the Ark’s center, their tips touching at the very place where Moses would commune with God. My body trembled, although I could not see my hands or arms. It was as if I were a spirit floating in the darkened chamber that held the Ark. Voices were chanting in the darkness, but the language was one I could not comprehend. Then, as if guided by the invisible hand of God, the lid opened and rose above the Ark. The cherubim glowed as if wreathed by blue fire. A pair of hands emerged into my line of sight, and I wondered for a moment whether they were my own. They reached into the Ark, disappearing with the smoky mists that swirled within, like steam rising from a lake. When they emerged from the mists, they held the Urim.”
The rabbi spoke with closed eyes, recounting the dream as if he were experiencing it again. Ciarán hung on his every word.
“I could hardly imagine such a thing,” the rabbi said, his voice filled with awe. “It was like a diamond, slightly smaller than the palm of one’s hand, cut with hundreds of facets—thousands maybe—reflecting a light more brilliant than any I have ever seen. It was blinding in its brightness, like the sun itself, but with the purity of Sirius burning in the night. I felt as if I might die, so enrapt was I by its light. But then, fearing that my spectral form might cease to exist, I awoke, grateful that it was only a dream.”
“Could you tell where the Ark was?” Dónall asked.
“That is not the point,” the rabbi said. “The dream made me realize that when we last met, I had made a bad assumption: that the Urim remained in the Ark. Yet what if it was removed?”
Ciarán nodded. “We’ve thought of that, too.”
“But where does that lead us?” Dónall asked.
“That is where we must focus on history,” the rabbi said. “According to scripture, the Ark remained in the Temple of Jerusalem long after the time of Solomon, up until the time when the Babylonians came. When Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem and ravaged the temple six hundred years before the birth of your Jesus, the picture becomes less clear. The Second book of Maccabees states that the prophet Jeremiah hid the Ark in a cave, in the mountain that Moses had climbed to see the Promised Land. Yet some question the accuracy of that story, believing that it was written to raise the people’s spirits during the revolt against the Greeks. Also, there are far earlier writings that contradict the Maccabean account. The Second book of Chronicles, for one, states that when the Babylonians destroyed the temple and stole the sacred pillars of Boaz and Jachin, Nebuchadnezzar’s forces took
all
the temple’s vessels and treasures to Babylon. And the Fourth book of Ezra is even clearer, speaking to the destruction of the temple and the plundering of the Ark of the Covenant by the Babylonians. A half century later, Babylon was conquered by the Persians, led by Cyrus the Great. Cyrus allowed the Israelites to return to Jerusalem, but he took possession of the treasures that the Babylonians stole. If the Ark was among them, then it fell into the hands of the Persians.”
“What would have happened after that?” Ciarán asked.
“There is a place in the city of my birth,” the rabbi said, “where the answer may lie: in Córdoba, the greatest city in all Europe. A center of learning like nothing in all Christendom. Unlike your Christian towns, where the local abbey might have an armful of books, throughout Córdoba are libraries with hundreds of books. And there is one library grander than them all, grander than any other in Europe: the library of Al-Hakkam the Second, the wisest caliph ever to rule Córdoba. This library holds not hundreds of books, but
hundreds of thousands
.”
Ciarán could hardly conceive of such a place. He doubted there were that many books in all the world.
“Al-Hakkam had hundreds of scribes,” the rabbi continued, “both Ishmaelite and Christian, translating works from Latin and Greek into Arabic. He acquired works throughout Christendom, from Rome and Aachen and Constantinople. And from Africa and the Arab lands. Baghdad and Damascus, and Alexandria and Jerusalem. And if you know anything about libraries . . .”
Dónall’s eyes lit up. “There’s a secret collection.”
“Of course,” the rabbi said with a mischievous smile. “All collectors have a special place for their rarest things. And Al-Hakkam was an extraordinary collector. We Jews often heard rumors that the library held texts from Solomon’s temple, taken by the Babylonians and, later, the Persians and now in the hands of the Muslim caliphs. There are other works rumored as well, acquired from Baghdad but originating from the ruins of Babylon, undoubtedly dating from the time of Cyrus the Great. If an account of the Urim’s fate exists, the only place in all of Europe you may find it is Córdoba.”
“So . . . you want us go to the Saracen lands?” Ciarán asked.
“There is no other way,” the rabbi replied. “Getting access to the secret collection will be very difficult. But my cousin in Córdoba is well connected. He will know people who can help us when we get there.”
“When
we
get there?” Dónall said. “You’re coming with us?”
“I am not a young man, Brother Dónall, and I have not seen the beauty of that city since long before my Sarah passed. And I dearly wish to see Córdoba once more before I die. I have stayed here only because the people needed their rabbi. But my nephew has finished his studies now and will do a fine job in my stead. It is time he came into his own.” The rabbi paused, a troubled look in his eyes.
“There’s more,” Dónall said, “isn’t there?”
“There was something about the script in your book that I have not been able to purge from my mind,” the rabbi said. “Those letters and their shapes—I could swear that each character, at its root, is Hebrew. Our mystics believe that God made the universe through the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, hewing them, weighing them, and combining them into creation. And now you show me what purports to be written in the tongue of angels, and they look like Hebrew letters. I would like very much to study them. And if this book speaks of the Urim . . .”
The rabbi closed his eyes for an instant and shuddered. “But there is something else: I fear from my dreams that some terrible evil seeks the Urim.” His eyes sprang open, as if compelled by the fierce determination burning within them. “We cannot let him have it!”
For a moment, Ciarán thought he caught something of Remi’s fervor in the rabbi’s eyes. “There’s something I still don’t understand,” Ciarán said. “The mystics have been searching for the Urim for centuries. If it’s as simple as digging through a library, why hasn’t anyone found it?”
“I do not know why,” the rabbi said. “But we have an advantage that they did not, no? A book written in the tongue of the angels! Perhaps it is the only advantage we will need.”
A smile crept across Dónall’s face. “Well, lad,” he said, rising from the bench, “grab your things. We’re going to Córdoba.”
*
They walked back to the city with Isaac, as the rabbi insisted on being called. Although Dónall advised against it, Ciarán made the short journey, still leaning on his stick but eager to regain the strength in his legs. Their first steps beyond the abbey’s gate were trepid, but once they had set foot on the road, and still the storm clouds did not manifest, Ciarán felt a degree of relief, though the whole time he kept a cautious hand on the talisman around his neck. Dónall, too, seemed wary at first, ever vigilant of the air around them, but gradually he relaxed, confident perhaps that the Fae magic had worked. If the demons were about, they dare not approach.
By the time they reached the street of the Jews, Ciarán had learned much about the good-natured rabbi. Isaac hailed from a family of Córdoban merchants, Jews who prospered under the reign of the Moorish caliphs and eventually expanded the family’s business to Bordeaux, importing Spanish olive oil and African spices. Isaac had neither love nor aptitude for the merchant’s trade, so his younger brother succeeded their father in Bordeaux while Isaac studied under the Córdoban rabbi who had traveled with the family to Aquitaine. Years later, when the rabbi of Poitiers died and the Jews of the city needed another, Isaac settled here with his late wife, of whom he spoke so fondly even though she never bore him a child. With the exception of Benjamin, Isaac’s youngest nephew, his other nephews continued their mercantile trade in Bordeaux, prospering as well as any Jew in a Christian land could hope. To transport their goods, they owned a ship, and now that ship would take them to Córdoba.
After a brief rest at the rabbi’s home, refreshed with roasted chestnuts and cups of spiced wine, Dónall and Ciarán bade farewell to Isaac. By design, they would leave just after the Christian New Year, to give Isaac time to alert his nephews in Bordeaux and to prepare Benjamin to serve as rabbi to the Jews of Poitiers. Both Dónall and Ciarán were grateful. For without Isaac’s family wealth and his offer of assistance, they would be nothing but two stone-broke Irishmen wandering this foreign land. Ciarán could not shake the feeling that they had been touched by the hand of fate.
*
Christmas came the next morning. Ciarán and Dónall joined the procession of monks that traveled from Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand to the Church of Saint-Etienne in Poitiers, where the duke of Aquitaine would celebrate Christmas mass. The procession entered the city under a platinum sky—seventy-nine monks walking two-by-two and chanting Christmas hymns.
A chorus of church bells rang through the streets, and on nearly every door hung wreaths of holly, ivy, and bay, while from the bell towers and church steeples fluttered banners of crimson and gold. The citizens, dressed in their finest clothes, made their way to mass, stopping at times to watch the monks.
If the monks of Saint-Hilaire’s felt any Christmas spirit, it had been dampened by the manner in which Prior Bernard had commenced their procession. For he had gathered the brethren a full half hour early in the abbey’s freezing courtyard and forced them to listen to an overlong sermon about God’s anger at all the wickedness in the world some 997 years since the birth of Christ. And yet, among the citizens of Poitiers, Ciarán sensed genuine happiness, for Christmas was a day when they were excused from work and when some were even invited to feasts of wine and roasted beef, hosted by their lords, while those less fortunate received gifts of bread and soup from the local abbeys and churches. Thus, the people throughout Poitiers showed good cheer toward the monks and their blessings.
The brothers of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand entered the Church of Saint-Etienne, where the rich smell of incense wafted through the narrow nave. On pillars along the arcade burned candles set in sconces and surrounded by wreaths of pine boughs. The procession split to walk down the right and left aisles that flanked the vestibule, beneath the rounded archways while intoning their rhythmic Gregorian chants. Worshipers filled the nave. There were nobles, ladies, and men of warrior stock, though no common folk that Ciarán could see. He followed Dónall down the left aisle as the monks filled the transept of the cross-shaped church. In the chancel, beyond the altar, where priests in white vestments gathered around the aged bishop of Poitiers, stood rows of black-robed monks from another monastery, who joined the chant as the monks of Saint-Hilaire took their places in the far transept.
The monks nearly overflowed the cramped transept, and Ciarán found himself on the edge of the nave, just feet from the first row of worshipers. At their head, Duke William prostrated on the stone-tiled floor, his crimson cape gathering in folds around him. Behind the duke stood members of his entourage—the same people Ciarán and Dónall had supped with just days ago: Emma of Blois and Lord Ramiro of León, Lord Dalmas and Lord Guy, and, of course, Lord Raymond. And beside Raymond, looking like a winter angel, stood Alais.
Although Ciarán had hoped to catch a glimpse of her before they left Poitiers, he was unprepared for what he saw. Her lithe form was wrapped in a green damask dress cinched tightly around her slender waist, with a mantle of silver and white above her breasts. Ciarán glimpsed her eyes, gray like the storm, but they made no search among the monks to find him.
His gaze left her as two columns of nuns filed into the aisles alongside the nave. They walked silently amid the joyous processional, for women were not allowed to raise their voices in the church. Canons closed the towering church doors behind the nuns, and then the mass began. The monks sang canticles, and the bishop read from the Gospel of Saint Matthew. The congregation prostrated for the great litany, and the choir sang during the communion, and all the while, Ciarán found himself drawn to Alais.
The chanting swelled before the benediction. The bishop stepped to the threshold of the nave and raised his arms above the prostrate duke. Before the bishop could speak, the vestibule doors swung open. A rush of wintry air blew through the nave, and a hush fell as the congregants near the vestibule began to part. The bishop looked up, startled, and the duke, too, stood and turned toward the open doors.